


i didn't mean to kiss you.

by Prettything_uglylie



Series: Tumblr Prompts [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, First Kiss, Growing Up, M/M, Oh Good Lord....these boys, Richie Toizer's Weird Allegories For Love, Richie Tozier Has Issues, Richie Tozier's Internalized Homophobia, Science, Soft Eddie Kaspbrak, Stress Relief, Surprise Kissing, The Forgetting (IT), The Impending Dread of Growing Up, Underage Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24247903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prettything_uglylie/pseuds/Prettything_uglylie
Summary: So, he hands out shitty lies, the only thing his big sardonic mouth can manage sometimes, "I have a chemistry test."
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: Tumblr Prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1057796
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	i didn't mean to kiss you.

**Author's Note:**

> You guys know that scene in Teen Wolf when Scott kisses Kira without thinking in the hallway, enters the classroom and then realizes that he kissed her?  
> That but with Reddie and angstier.

He is outside smoking, attempting to stop the persistent shake of his hands like a leaf in the fall breeze and he does not feel the cold of the August wind coursing through his clothes anymore. 

Richie Tozier runs warm, a natural trait inherited by the Tozier genes so sitting out in late August's brisque winds in a Nirvana t-shirt and a pair of ripped jeans, he does not feel cold nip at his wirey frame like it would rock Denbrough's or Eddie's persistent comments that he was going to get pneumonia and die - a side-effect no doubt of his mother. 

Not for the first time, a seventeen-year-old Richie wishes that Beverly Marsh was still in the picture to give him someone to sit and smoke with in t-shirts and cold weather together but something happened after you left this town, Richie had considered. When Bev had left to live with her aunt, Richie had been happy for her - she was safe and not under her father's creepy eye any more - but then she had stopped writing him and Bill and Ben and when his phone had connected with her aunt's house, she had asked if he was sure he had the right number. 

He had been willing to brush it off at Bev being the lone case but after moving to New Hampshire, Ben's letters and phone calls halted as well and when he would answer, he too would sound disoriented. 

But the final straw had been Stan. 

_Fuck,_ Richie draws a wet gasp in between his teeth, sucking air into broken down lungs as tears sting his eyes beneath his glasses, _Stan the Man had hurt. He had poured his heart into an honest letter but had received a letter back, simply saying, 'you're a bizarre guy, please stop talking to me. If you send another letter, you will get it returned to your address.'_

His converse tap against the bench of the picnic table outside the school zone and he attempts to swallow the feeling down. 

They're all moving on, all growing up and forgetting each other. This is it - this is their teenage years and they're dwindling faster than anyone had wanted. 

"Rich!" The shout is loud and cut-off as Eddie Kaspbrak's body stumbles through the double-set exit doors. He looks out of breath like he had when he had asthma attacks as a child or as a young teenager but since confronting his mother, he has grown into something else. 

_He's slightly taller._ Richie thinks, amused but in a way that edges as bitter, acknowledging the way that he too is growing up and soon, he may forget. His hair has grown out a bit - nothing like Richie's own unruly curls but longer for sure - and he has stopped slicking his hair back, highlighting the sweet almond of his doe eyes and his face has shifted into something older as well. 

He breathes out smoke, "Hey, Eds." 

The _don't call me that_ must get lost in the wind or the mall or maybe Eddie grew out of that too. Maybe he forgot. His hands shake, he takes another puff and doesn't turn to look at Eddie but the younger boy comes to sit beside him on the table, swinging jean-clad legs to prop on the bench before murmuring, "Aren't you fucking cold?" 

He shrugs, unable to explain himself to Eddie, unable to explain himself to himself so he simply does not answer, pulling another puff before exhaling, removing the white pad from his lips and he does not look at Eddie - he can't stand to look at how much they've aged, how much they'll grow apart but he wants to lean into Eddie in the same way. 

To remember him forever.

"What's up?" He sighed heavily, seeming somber and it slams against his heart like a swarm of cancer-stick smoke circling his lungs but Richie does not have answers for Eddie's question. 

So, he hands out shitty lies, the only thing his big sardonic mouth can manage sometimes, "I have a chemistry test." 

Eddie's voice is amused but they can both feel the impending dread that moments like this will not last much longer, moments like this will strain and continue for a bit but this will end and it will come sooner than later and it will hurt more than anything ever. "You're in AP." 

And what does that mean? Does that mean he should know, because there's so much more basic things he should know how to do than science like breathing some mornings and reminding himself to breath properly when he looks at Eddie? He doesn't. 

He doesn't know how to do a ton of shit. 

"Yet," he makes a vague swooshing gesture with his free hand that remains between them like he has taken the air into his palm and tosses it through the oxygen around them and it makes Eddie laugh - a sound that on his coldest days, could warm his heart like a heater in his home. 

He wants to touch Eddie's hand with that hand. 

He plays it down, the moment slipping and the bell begins to ring, the moment evaporated and their sense of humors dried up. This feels like something - the end of something. 

It is how all of their conversations have felt lately and it makes his stomach churn and himself feel sick, he wants to vomit. 

He knows that the only thing that would come out is smoke. 

Eddie presses into his side, _cold_ , and on instinct, Richie's arm wraps around his shoulders and then, he's looking at him - actually looking. The tip of his nose has turned such a harsh pink in the cold that it is almost red and the rest of his body is a sickly pale color from the wind whipping through his sweater but his wide eyes are locked into Richie's own now. They're caught here, in this moment, staring at each other and wishing it didn't end. 

He doesn't mean to kiss Eddie - he doesn't.

But before he knows it, the gentle press of his own lips skate over Eddie's and Eddie's hand tangles into the back of his shirt. 

It tastes like smoke and summer and salt and nights that Richie has spent crying and begging no one but God to be normal. 

It tastes like the end to something bigger. 

He enters his science class a few moments later, barely aware that he had just done something he had spent years dreaming of, and in that moment... Richie had already felt like he was forgetting. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this! Please fling comments at me!


End file.
